Part 12

"I'll tell you all that is known. Captain Pegram is an unusually energetic officer, with a bad habit of getting himself wounded. His battery to-day was in the extreme advance, but it seems that a little hill just in front of him interfered with the fire of one of his guns, and so he advanced with that piece to the crest of the mound. At that moment the enemy made a dash at that point, and it became necessary to retire the gun to prevent its capture. Pegram gave orders to that effect, and they were executed. But almost as the orders left his lips, he fell from his horse with a bullet-hole through his body. His men tried to bring him off, but that involved the risk of losing the gun, so he peremptorily ordered them to save the gun and leave him where he lay. The enemy's line swarmed over the little hill, and when our men recovered it, Pegram was nowhere to be found. The enemy had evidently carried him to the rear to care for him as a wounded prisoner."

"Can anything be done?" the girl asked, still with an apparent calm that would have deceived a less sagacious observer than Stuart.

"I could send a flag of truce to-morrow to ask concerning him, but it would be of no use. You see the enemy refuses as yet to recognise our rights as belligerents, and will not communicate with us in proper form. Their answer would come back addressed to me, but carefully lacking all indication of my character as an officer in the Confederate army. Under my orders I could not receive a communication so addressed. It would be of no use, therefore, to inquire, and in any case we could not secure his exchange, as we have now no exchange cartel in force. I do not see that we can do anything."

The young woman stood silent for a full minute, while Stuart looked at her, full of an admiration for the courage she was manifesting. At last she asked:

"General, will you send to the camp of Captain Pegram's battery, and bid his servant report here to me at once?"

For reply Stuart called Corporal Hagan--the swarthy giant who had charge of his couriers--and ordered him to send a courier on Agatha's mission without delay.

Half an hour later Sam presented himself with eyes red from weeping, and Agatha proceeded at once to business.

"You care a great deal for your master, don't you, Sam?"

"Kyar for Mas' Baillie? Ain't I his nigga? An' ain't he de mastah of Warlock? Kyar for him? Why, Mis' Agatha, I'se ready to lay down an' die dis heah very minute 'case he's done got hisse'f shot an' captured."

"Then you are willing to take some risks for his sake?"

"Sho' as shootin' I is. Yes, sho'er'n shootin', 'case shootin' ain't always sho'. Jes' you tell me how to do anything for Mas' Baillie, an' then bet all the money you done got, an' put your mortal soul into de bet, dat Sam'll face de very debil hisse'f to carry out yer 'structions."

"I believe you, Sam, and I'm going to trust you. You will go with me to Willoughby to-morrow. We'll start soon in the morning and get there before night. From there I'm going to send you north to find your master. I'll tell you how to do it. When you find him, you are to stay with him and nurse him, no matter where he is. And when he gets well enough, you must find some way of setting him free from the hospital so that he can make his way back to Virginia again."

"But, Mis' Agatha, how's I to--"

"Never mind the details now. I'll tell you about all that when I get my plans ready. I'll tell you everything you must do and how to do it, so far as I can, and you must depend on your wits for the rest. You're pretty quick, I think."

"Yes'm; anyhow I kin see through a millstone ef there's a hole through it. But, Mis' Agatha, is you sho' 'nuff gwine to tell me how to fin' Mas' Baillie an' take kyar o' him?"

Agatha reassured him, and sent him off to sleep in order to be ready for their early start in the morning. Then she joined Stuart and asked him:

"Did you pick up any prisoners near the point where Captain Pegram fell?"

"I really don't know. Why?"

"Why, if you did you'd know to what command they belonged, and that would help me."

"Help you? Why, what are you planning?"

"To find Captain Pegram."

"But how?"

"Through my agents,--and Sam, his body-servant."

"O, I see. Your underground railroad is to have a passenger traffic. I'll find out what you wish to know. And if you'd like I'll have Sam passed through our lines, after which he can pretend to be a runaway."

"I thought of that," Agatha answered, "but it will not do. I must send him through my friends. You see in Maryland he'll require a slave's pass from a master, and my friends will be his masters, one after another. Besides, they will help me find out in what hospital Captain Pegram is. I've thought it all out. I must first prepare my friends for Sam's coming. With your permission I'll take him with me to Willoughby to-morrow."

"You are a wonderful woman!"

That is all that Stuart said, but it sufficiently suggested the admiration he felt for her courage, her resourcefulness, and her womanly devotion. Bidding her call upon him for any assistance she might need in carrying out her plans, he dismissed her for the night, ordering her to go to sleep precisely as he might have ordered a soldier to go to his tent. But Agatha did not obey as the soldier would have done. She went to bed, indeed, but she could not sleep. Her nerves were all a-quiver as the result of the trying experiences to which she had been subjected, until now her excited brain simply would not sink into quietude. She lay hour after hour staring into the darkness, thinking, thinking, thinking. She remembered the words that suffering on her account had wrung from Baillie Pegram that morning at the bivouac, and she bitterly reproached herself for having given him no worthier answer than a command to forget what he had said. She knew now with what measure of devotion this man loved her, and she knew something else, too, as she lay there in the darkness face to face with her own soul. She knew now that she loved Baillie Pegram with all that was best in her proud and passionate nature. That truth confronted her. It was "naked and not ashamed." Her conscience scourged her for what she regarded as her heartlessness and frivolity in putting aside his declaration of love with the false pretence that it found no response in her own soul.

"I might at least have thanked him," she thought. "I might at least have said to him 'there is no longer war between me and thee.' And now he lies dead perhaps, or on a bed of suffering,--a wounded prisoner in the hands of the enemy. All that I can now do is to search him out and send Sam to nurse and comfort him." Then a new thought came to her. "That is _not_ all that I can do. Shame upon me for thinking so, even for a moment. I can go to him myself, and I will, if God lets him live long enough. I'll take Sam with me. He can be very helpful in the search, with his sharp wits and the freedom from suspicion which his black face will secure him."

The dawn was breaking now, and a score of bugles were musically sounding the reveille in the camps round about. Agatha rose quickly, and without summoning her weary maid, plunged her face into a basin of cold water half a dozen times. Then seeing in her little mirror how hollow-eyed and haggard she was, she wetted a towel and flagellated herself with it till the colour came back and her nerves lost their tremulousness.

So great a transformation did this treatment work, that Stuart complimented her upon her freshness of face when she appeared at the breakfast-table. He had meanwhile secured for her definite information as to the Federal command that had made Pegram prisoner. He had also managed in some way to secure a side-saddle for her to ride upon, and a squad of cavalrymen, under command of a sergeant, was waiting outside to be her escort on her journey.

"Thank you, General, for giving me so good a mount," she said, glancing with a practised eye at the lean but powerful animal provided for her use.

"You should have a better one, if a better were to be had. You deserve it. By the way, you need not send the horse back by the escort. He will not be needed here, for a time at least."

Agatha looked at him, and then at the animal again, this time recognising it as the one that Baillie Pegram had ridden by her side twenty-four hours before.

"He belongs to Captain Pegram, I believe," she answered.

"Yes, his second horse, and he is specially careful of him."

"I'll see that the animal is well cared for," answered the girl, "until--"

She did not finish the sentence, and Stuart turned away, pretending not to see the tears that stood beneath her eyelids.

XX

_TWO HOME-COMINGS_

News of Agatha's safe return to Virginia had been sent to Colonel Archer by a courier, on the morning of her arrival at Stuart's headquarters, and the octogenarian promenaded up and down the porch all the next day, during her homeward journey.

He had greatly grieved to have his "ladybird" undertake her late perilous enterprise at all. But with him at least Agatha was accustomed to have her way, and moreover the spirit of the old soldier was strong within him still, so that he was intensely in sympathy with Agatha's courageous purpose to render such service as a woman might to the cause that both had at heart.

But Agatha had a harder task before her now. Remembering the heart-broken tone in which he had bidden her good-bye on the former occasion, and easily imagining the suffering he must have endured during her absence, both from loneliness and from apprehension for her safety, she thought with something like terror of her new necessity of leaving him again, almost in the very hour of his joy at her return. For it was her resolute purpose to set out again within a very few days,--as soon, indeed, as she could feel confidence that her preliminary letters would reach their destination before her own arrival there.

There were other matters that troubled her, too. She must tell her Chummie the reason for her second journey, and that would be a distressing thing for her to do. She must tell him frankly--for she would never in the least trifle with truth, especially in dealing with him--that she had learned to love Baillie Pegram, and that she had in effect put it out of possibility that Baillie Pegram should ever ask for knowledge of that fact.

To a woman of her sensitively proud nature, such a confession, even to her grandfather, seemed almost shameful. She shrank from the very thought of it, and flushed crimson every time it came to her mind during that long day's ride. Yet not for one moment did she falter in her determination to undergo the ordeal. Not for one moment did she entertain a thought of evading the painful confession, or in any way disguising the truth. So much was due to her grandfather, and never in her life had she cheated him of his dues as Chummie. It was due to herself also. To shrink from a duty because of its painfulness would be cowardice, and there was no touch or trace of that most detestable weakness in her soul.

"Anyhow," she resolved, "I'll let him have one whole day of joy before I grieve him with the news that I must go away again. And in telling him of my first journey I'll say as little as I can about the dangers encountered and the hardships endured; I'll make as much of a frolic of it as I can in the telling. Surely there will be no untruthfulness in that."

That day's journey was a long one, but the start was early, and Baillie Pegram's horse was a willing one, as that energetic young man's horses were apt to be, while as for the troopers of the escort, they and their horses were accustomed to follow at any pace their leader might set. It was barely three o'clock in the afternoon, therefore, when the cavalcade arrived at Willoughby, and Agatha threw herself into the old gentleman's arms.

"Oh, Agatha!"

"Oh, Chummie!"

That at first was all that the two could say. When Colonel Archer found voice he greeted the troopers and bade them leave their horses to the care of his servants. For the men were of that class, socially, to which Colonel Archer belonged, and there was no thought at that time in Virginia of treating a gentleman otherwise than as a gentleman, merely because he happened to be a private soldier.

"You will be my guests for the night," the host said, quite as if that settled the matter. But the sergeant had orders which he must obey,--orders which Stuart, with his unfailing foresight, had probably given, to make sure that the presence of his men at Willoughby overnight might not spoil an occasion of tender affection.

"Thank you very cordially, Colonel Archer," answered the sergeant; "but we are under orders to move on toward Loudoun County to-night. We are permitted to rest the horses for three hours only. After that we must march about a dozen miles before sleeping, so that we may complete a little scouting expedition into Loudoun to-morrow. Our orders on that point are peremptory."

"Well, Ladybird, we'll have the gentlemen to dinner at any rate. As soon as I heard of your coming I went out with my gun, and brought back two big wild turkeys, as fat as butter. I thought you might come under escort, so I've had them put both the birds on the spit. I'll wager you gentlemen haven't seen a wild turkey this fall."

So he ran on with his hospitable greetings, managing in his joyous nervousness to upset two of the glasses which he had ordered a servant to bring with the decanters, for the troopers' refreshment. Agatha managed presently to get a word with him aside.

"It is three o'clock, Chummie--an hour before dinner. I'll have time enough to boil myself a little. Think of it, Chummie, I haven't had a hot bath for a whole week!" Then turning to her escort she excused herself until the dinner-hour.

This was an unhappy circumstance, as Agatha learned when she came down, fresh-faced, to the dinner. For, left alone with the troopers, the old gentleman naturally asked them concerning the details of her coming into Stuart's lines, and as the story of her dash through the canister fire was echoing throughout the army, the young fellows grew enthusiastic in their minute descriptions of her peril and her heroism. When Agatha reappeared, therefore, the old gentleman was all a-tremble. He met her at the foot of the stairway, and a little scene followed, which told the girl not only that he knew all that had been most harrowing in her experiences, but that the knowledge of it would make her coming absence cruelly hard for him to bear.

At dinner he found himself too tremulous to carve, and, for the first time in his life, he relinquished that most hospitable of all a host's offices to the younger men.

"Never mind, Ladybird," he said, cheerily, as he saw how greatly troubled she was, "it will pass presently, and you shall find me quite myself again in the morning. We're going after the birds, you know, you and I. I haven't allowed a partridge to be killed on the plantation this fall, so that you might be sure of a good day's sport with Chummie."

Thus it came about that as the old man and the young woman sat in the firelight that evening, after the troopers were gone, Agatha changed her purpose and told him of Baillie Pegram. Delicately, but with perfect candour, she told the whole of the truth.

"I learned to like him very much while I was in Richmond last Christmas, and I was not to blame for that, was I, Chummie? He was so kind to me, so good in a thousand little ways, so gentle in all his strength that he reminded me of you, more than anybody else ever did. I used often to think that he was very much the sort of man you must have been when you were in your twenties. There was no reason, that I knew of, why I should not like him. He was a gentleman, the representative of one of the best families in the State, a man of the highest character, well-educated, travelled, intellectual, and of charming manners. He did more than anybody else--or everybody else for that matter--to make the time pass pleasantly for me. You see how it was, don't you, Chummie?"

The old gentleman nodded his head with a smile, and answered:

"I see how it was, Ladybird. Go on. Tell me all about it."

"Then one day there came a letter from The Oaks. It wasn't just a scolding letter. It was something much worse than that. For if my aunts had scolded me, I shouldn't have stood it."

"What would you have done, Ladybird?" asked the grandfather, with a look of pleased and loving pride upon his countenance.

"I should have come back to Willoughby and you."

"And right welcome you would have been. But go on. What did the old cats--psha! I didn't mean that; I thought I heard a cat yowling as I spoke--what did the good ladies of The Oaks say to you?"

"O, they wrote very kindly and sorrowfully. They were shocked to know that I had permitted something like intimacy to grow up between myself and a young man without consulting them as to the proprieties of the situation. But how could I have done that, Chummie? You see I didn't sit down and say, 'I'm going to be intimate with this young man if my aunts approve.' The friendship just grew, quite naturally, like the grass on a lawn. I didn't think about it at all, and I don't see why I should. I met Mr. Pegram in all the best houses; everybody was fond of him, and everybody spoke of him in the highest terms. Why should I think--"

"You shouldn't, Ladybird. I should have been ashamed of you if you had. Only a vain or morbidly self-conscious girl would have thought in such a case. And only--there goes that confounded cat again--only elderly gentlewomen of secluded lives and a badly perverted sense of propriety would ever have thought of such a thing. But continue, my child. I suppose they told you about that idiotic old quarrel--"

"Yes, Chummie--they told me and they didn't tell me. They never would say what it was all about, or how much there was in it. Indeed, they told me I was guilty of a great irreverence in even asking concerning it. They said it should be quite enough for a well-ordered young woman to know that these people were my father's enemies. As Mr. Baillie Pegram never knew my father, I couldn't understand why he and I should be enemies, but when I said something like that, I saw that the aunties were terribly shocked. I suppose I'm not a 'well-ordered' young lady, Chummie."

"No! Thank God you're not. You are just a sweet, wholesome, lovable girl--and that is very different from what those old--ladies call a 'well-ordered' young woman."

"Well, anyhow," the girl resumed, "I obeyed my instructions. I wrote to Mr. Pegram, telling him there could be no friendship between him and me, and do you know, Chummie, they blamed me more for that than for all the rest. They said it was 'unladylike' and a lot more things, for me to write to him at all. But I never could find out what they thought I ought to have done. I couldn't break off the acquaintance without telling him I must do so, could I?"

"_You_ couldn't, and I'm glad you couldn't. A 'well-ordered' young lady would have done it easily. She would have told a lot of lies about not being at home when he called, or having a headache when he wanted to see her. You couldn't do that because you are honest and truthful, and that's the best thing about you, except your love for your old Chummie, and even that wouldn't be of much account if I couldn't trust its truth and sincerity. Go on, child. I didn't mean to interrupt."

"O, but you must interrupt. That's the only way I know what you're thinking. Well, I went to The Oaks sometime later, and while there I went out one morning for a ride by myself. My poor horse broke his leg, as I told you in a letter, and Mr. Baillie Pegram happened along, and was very kind in helping me out of my trouble. He insisted that I should ride his mare home. I tried all I could to refuse, but he showed me that I simply could not help myself, and so I took the mare,--the same one that was killed under him at Manassas. That time the aunties did actually scold me, or pretty nearly that. So I rebelled, and made up my mind to come back to you at once. Mr. Pegram dined at The Oaks on the day before I started, and he and I had a long talk, but of course it could not change the situation. That was the last I saw of him until the day before the battle of Manassas, when he took a red feather out of my hat and wore it in the battle. He was terribly wounded in the fight, but he sent the feather back to me as he had promised to do. I had quoted to him or let him quote to me the Indian's defiance, 'There is war between me and thee.' It was after that that he insisted upon taking the feather and wearing it through the battle."

The girl paused, but her grandfather said nothing for a whole minute. Perhaps he felt that she needed the pause before speaking further. At last he said, very low and gently:

"Tell me about yesterday morning."

She did so, sparing herself at no point. She told of Baillie's outburst, and of the declaration of his love. She told, too, of her chilling answer, and her perversity in so managing the conversation as to prevent a recurrence to the subject. Finally she broke down, saying with streaming eyes:

"Oh, Chummie! I have ruined his life--and my own!"

"I don't know so well about that. He may recover, you know."

"Yes, I know. But what then?" At that she laid her head upon the old man's breast and let herself become a little child again, in an abandonment of grief. And with a childlike confidence and candour she said at last:

"Oh, Chummie! Don't you understand? He can never know. He will always think of me as hard and cold and unresponsive. After what I said to him yesterday morning, he cannot again tell me--why, Chummie, it was as bad as if I had slapped him in the face!"

The old man caressed her till her agitation subsided. Then, speaking in a tone of wisdom which irresistibly carried conviction with it, he said:

"You are wholly wrong, Agatha. Baillie Pegram is much too brave and true, and much too generous a man to let this matter rest where it is. If he recovers, as I pray God he may, be very sure he will come to you again and tell you calmly what he blurted out without meaning to do so, under stress of a trying situation. You must go to sleep now, little girl. You are very weary and greatly overwrought. And we must be up with the sun to-morrow on account of the birds. Good night, dear. You must never leave me again while I live."

There was unsteadiness in his step, as he gallantly ushered her through the doorway, and as he returned to the room to extinguish the solitary lamp. Then a heaviness came over him, and he sat down again in his easy chair before the fire. The logs had ceased to blaze and crackle now, but the old man sat still. The logs fell into a mass of glowing coals after a time, and slowly the coals ceased to glow. One by one they went out. Still he did not move.

There were only ashes in the great fireplace when the morning came and Agatha found her Chummie still sitting there where the fire of his life had so gently gone out.

XXI

_AT PARTING_

News of Colonel Archer's death ran rapidly through a State of which he had been one of the foremost citizens, by reason alike of his public services and his private virtues. It quickly reached Stuart's ears, and he promptly sent a courier with a letter of sympathy and friendship, at the end of which he wrote:

"Now, my dear Miss Agatha, I crave a favour at your hands. Your grandfather was a soldier greatly distinguished in two wars. He should have a soldier's burial, and with your permission, which I take for granted, I am ordering a company of dragoons and a battery now stationed at Warrenton and under my command, to move at once to Willoughby, and there pay the last honours to the veteran."